Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to
my Skillshare class. I am Stephanie and have been a professional artist
for over a decade. In today's class, I'm
going to show you how to sculpt miniature angel and butterfly fishes that are
abundant in coral reefs. I'm going to guide
you step-by-step, starting with drawing
the silhouettes, sculpting the bodies, and then painting them for
a final result. For those of you who
do not like to draw, I will also add a PDF outlining all the fissures you can easily print out and
transfer onto paper. This is a mixed media class
and we're going to use primarily water
color cotton paper called porcelain and acrylics. Wireless class is absolutely
fit for beginners. It's going to be fun enough for more advanced
sculptors, as well. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed making this class and these fissures tremendously. And I really hope
that you are going to enjoy this class as well.
2. Materials: For this class, we
will be needing hot pressed watercolor paper
in hundred percent cotton. An exacto knife, acid
free white glue. This is a no-name brand. Make sure to use an acid free. While you're called porcelain, I will be using
in today's class. Acrylic paint. Here is a split primary
palette with black and white. That's really all you need
for every imaginable color. Dedicated acrylic brushes,
synthetics on best.
3. Reference Sketches: Sketching out fissures or
whatever you're working on before it's going to be very helpful for the
painting process. Now of course, you could have 1,000 pictures open
on your computer. But if you make the
effort of picking one specific fish
and painting it out, you are more likely
to do that one and you already making
the first choice. The other thing that I
find very helpful is to watch videos off the
animal emotions. So these are angel fissures that I made from stills from a
video that I found on YouTube. Because that way you
better understand how the fish moves and how
it looks from all sides. Another option would be to
go to necrotic or a zoo. Working from a live animal
is going to be very helpful. And videos are super easy
because you just pause whenever you need it and
then you can make a quick sketch and
understand how it works. If you already have a
precise idea on where you're going to do your
fishers to work out a few colors and
color schemes for you to decide what you're going to do and how it's going
to be a lot easier. Now, you're going to
see me paint a lot of different officials
and different colors. Feel free to replicate
some of them. But I would really
encourage you to find your own colors and your own
composition for the fishes, because this is
what's going to make your work uniquely yours. I'm simply showing you a technique on how to
make these fissures. But what you do
with that technique is up to you and you can go much further in
your own work with that than to just copy my work, which is going to always feel a little bit unsatisfying in the end because it's merely
a copy from someone else. Copying is good and important in the
studying and process. But when you feel ready to
fly from your own wings, I would really encourage
you to do that.
4. Basic Drawing Silhouette: Now once you've
studied the fissures, I think it's always important
to simplify the shapes. So I'm going to use
this for you today. But in general, that's
something to think about. So a fish very simplified is a sort of an oval shape like so. And then you've got
fence around it. So depending on the fish, the fins are going to
be quite different. If we are taking anal fissures, the nose is slightly up and
down on the mouth really, it's not the nose, the mouth. And then you have one
thing that goes up. Sometimes you have a
bit of an added shape, then you have the back thing. Then you have the same
thing but on the bottom. And they're often in symmetry. And then you usually have those two smaller frontal fence. The eye usually is a little bit over the mouth and the back. And then you also have
what we are not going to do them in today's class. But you have some side
veins that are about here. So you have all the
mouth and the hand. And then here you've
got some site fins. And this is a very
simplified fish shape. Now of course, you
can play around with fish shapes with
different types of fins. And again, look at references, look at pictures of real fishes, angel fishes, and
butterfly fishes. To draw inspiration from, I will be adding this
sheet as PDF in the class. So if you want, you
can also print it out. This is going to be easier. But if you want to
make this class truly your own, then use references. Understand the fishes,
draw simplified shapes, and then we can move on to the next step for the
fissures or InDesign that to start with a paper
silhouette using 100% cotton watercolor paper. The idea here is that once
you have a nice silhouette, not much can go wrong in
terms of shape. Later on. Paper has also the big advantage of being virtually unbreakable unless you tell it it can be easily bent
without breaking. I really like using paper
and my own sculptures for anything that is very thin
for that particular reason, start by drawing the outlines on the fissures onto the paper. I used colored pencils for that, but you can use
whatever you want. We will be painting everything
with acrylics later on. So you do not have to worry too much about what
you're using to draw. Once you're happy
with the silhouette, use an exacto knife
to cut the shape out. When dealing with sharp blades, always be mindful and
concentrated about the process. Blades can be dangerous
and you can hurt yourself. So please stay safe. And the second small
fin and the front cut out a similar shaped
fin from paper out. Glue that piece
directly to the fin. Keep repeating these steps until you have enough
fishes for your projects. As I mentioned before, if drawing isn't your
strongest skill, feel free to download and print the PDF I added to the class. You can then transfer
those shapes onto thicker paper and cut the
fish silhouettes out, play around with
different shapes while the silhouettes making the
fence longer or shorter, bolder or simplify it. Also play around
with mouth shapes.
5. Fish Sculpting: So now that we have
cut out little fishes, we are going to add some clay. But first we're going to use
some stainless steel wire. So this is very simple
stainless steel wire that I found at an
brick and mortar shop. And this y is important. So you can attach your
fish and the end. So depending on what
you want to do, you might want to add it on top. On the bottom. I know I want to attach my officials
on the bottom, but if you want to hang them, then you might want to add it up and you could
add a little loop. So it really is going to
depend on where you want them. It will also suggest to use more than what you
think you need. Because once the
wire is attached, you cannot make it longer. However, you can
always cut it shorter. If you realize it's too much. You might also want
to shape it a little. So it follows the line, the thin, which I'm doing here. Now for the clay itself, I'm going to use called
porcelain and parcel them is going to
shrink when flying. So depending on what you want, it's going to be
quite interesting. I made a test batch first. And as you can see, the fish is warped, but it's actually quite nice because it looks
like it's moving. So what I'm going to do is
we're going to make a few that are going to be warped and some that are not
going to be warped. So you can decide and
choose what you like best. Now, I'm going to use some
acid free white glue. It's always the
same Lu that I use. You do want to acid free. Always are set free glue. It's a little bit
more expensive, but it's not that
much more expensive. You usually find that type of glue and outs of life sharp. And I use this brush, always follow the glue
and while I wait, I put it into water. And this is just tiny box. I don't I think there were
bits inside and I use nuts. So as you can see, I just added some
glue onto the paper. Now I'm going to add, I'm going to add
this here as well. Now let's pretend we do
not want this one to warp. So what we're going to do
is to push the clay down, but do not smooth it onto the paper because
it's the smoothing that is going to
make the paper wop. So what am I going to
do here is we're just adding the bulk of the fish. You're going to let
it dry a legless. And then once it's dry, we will go back and add more. And to really make sure that the paper is
not going to warp. I'm going to do the same, but on the other
side of the fish. So same procedure. You might want to have
some kind of towel to remove most of the
water and then again, add some glue in the center and under theme
about the same amount of clay. On the other side. Don't worry too much about it. This is too much. Don't worry too much about it. If it's not exact as we're going to add more clay
later on anyway. So yeah, it doesn't yeah, don't don't drive
yourself crazy to have the exact amount on both sides. Just make sure you know, you will have some
kind of a blob. And you also want to
make sure that it's thicker around the
belly and a little bit thinner everywhere else. But again, don't smooth it
down onto the paper so it will have space to
shrink and retracts. Just make sure it's
about the same size. And you can let this
one dry like so. Now let's suppose you want the warping effect
like this one. Let's take a similar
shaped fish. Also. While you wait, she wants to leave
tabs and prepare. It's always best. Put the code, pass one back into an
outside container. This is called parcel and
here is made in Belgium. I live in France and
that's why I have it. It's not my favorite one. It's not very flexible once dry, but it is relatively
cheap and it's also non-toxic and
it's local to me. So that's why I have it. Feel free to use the brand
that you like most or make your own call to
parcel and if you'd like, I never made called
parcel and myself, so I don't have a
recipe for labs, but I knew that you can find
recipes online quite easily. In short, it's
basically some kind of starch and then some glue, some white glue acid free, of course, always
oscillatory white glue. And yeah, and you
cook it somehow. Again, I've never done it, so I cannot give you
more advice on it. But yeah, it's just wanted
to let you know because cold porcelain homemade called
parcel m can be a lot cheaper. And so it's a budget
friendly alternative. And you all can also
make sure that you have the best glue, the best acid free white blue, that is most local
to you and so on. And you can also
mixing pigments. So I think it's interesting
as a whole, but yeah, I've just added some glue
onto the paper of the fish. Now I'm taking the code
pass on ARB again. Like before, I'm going Take
around the same size of clay. Only this time I'm going
to smooth it down. Could have other a little bit
more, but that's all right. You can always add
more clay later. Then I'm just going
to smooth it down so I'm going to dip my
finger into some water. You don't want too much
but you want a bit. And then you smooth the clay
like Sue onto the paper. You can do that a little
bit further back. But don't do it for the hand because you don't want
the hand to be warped. Even though we are
going to sculpt it later on. That's about it. And we're going to
unlettered dry like Sue usually it will dry
within a good day, sometimes a little less. And then the meantime, you can add the clay onto
all of the other fissures. This is what I'm going to do. And you can play around
between warped and not warped, or you can wait for the first two to dry first and then decide
what you like best. So once it's dry, we want to complete the
body with some extra clay. So what I'm going to
do is just to add some glue and clay on top
and smooth it's onto it. We're not going to
do the eyes for now. So just and the clay and smooth at this time to do both sides at once. I'm using water,
you smooth the clay onto the existing dried clay. You can see the fresh
clay is whiter. And then you have to reshape
the head as well after that. But first, smooth the clay. Like so we're not
going to do the eyes now we will do them in a, in a third step as
it's just going to be easier to deal with
those that way. I'm going to read, you reshape. Probably going to
remove some clay. But it's easier to add a little bit too
much and remove it. You have the dark. You also
want to add a little bit of clay to smooth the
body onto the pins. So I still have some of the
clay that I removed soft. Now, depending on your climate, those bits of clay
might already be dry. So this is going to depend. Today. It's raining here, so the air is pretty moist. And that makes it
a lot easier to work with that type of clay. Working in a very dry climate, then it's going to
be more challenging. I don't need a lot. You can also use a tool
if that's easier. I find the fingers
are better, but Feel free to use
to us if you like that or if working with
your fingers fuels to fiddling and will end right-click in general
and caught Parson. Martyrs really going
to be your friend. I'm going to help
you smooth down the clay as you want it. Now there are many ways of making fissures
that include clay. I'm here, I'm showing you
paper and colposcopy them. But technically you could
use other types of clays. So this side is good. And now I'm just going
to do the other sides and adding a bit of
acid free white glue. This is sculpting tool. I don't remember which one, but a needle will do just fine. Or even a toothpick. I like methadone because
I like to use methyl with glue because you can't
easily put it in water. So basically the paper is really your guide and the sculpture. Biggest country you might
want to use a metal. You have your little fish
and now you just let it dry again and you repeat the
process for the other fissures. Now, if for some fishes, you decided to let it
walk naturally like Yeah, I did on this one,
as you can see, it is warped and
quite beautifully. So that's a case. You are simply going to add
the body on the other side. So this is just an extra step and it's very similar to
what we did previously. So just add the acid
free white girl. This time you do not want to smooth the clay onto the paper. You do not want to warp
the paper back. Let's try. Now for the warped fishes. Once the other side is dry, you're going to do
exactly the same. Add some clay all around and smooth it and don't
forget the head. Again, we're just using
the acid free white glue. Going to work on
both sides at once. The way I find it easier to add the clay onto the fish is to roll out a snake of clay and
then add it around the fish. Adding a little bit
more around the head and on the other side. So here you just need the hand. Let me push the clay
around the body. And then using some water you're going to smooth down the clay. So I find it easy entry
start on the edge. That way you can hold
the fish in the center. Once you smooth down the
clay onto the fence. Once this is done, you can form the wire that
way you have a better hold. And then using some water, you smooth down the
clay onto the body. Once your content. Just put it aside for
drying and keep going. Adding clay on all your fishers. Once the fish body as some dry and we're going
to add the eyes. We will be using the
acid free white glue. And what we're going
to do is to add a small dots of acid
free white glue where the eyeballs are going to be going to do both
sides at once. Then you roll out
really small balls of cold Parson and put it
on top of the glute. You want to make sure that both eyeballs are
about the same size. Then you want to
make sure that they are on the same level. So it's helpful to move
the fissure rounds. And then I'm going to
use a metallic tool to push the clay down
and just move it down. I use some water onto the tool to help
smoothing the clay. I always find it helpful
to use my fingers. At last. She kind of round everything up and push the eyeball
a little bit flatter. You just want to
let it dry again. Now once the fishes
are sculpted, it's time to add some
clay onto the wire. I did it here and here already. So basically, if you have
something event is left, then add some glue first. Because you want
to make your meal. You want to make sure that the clay is going to be
flush with the wire. And the paper. Start by adding a little
bit of clay onto the thin and put some clay
around the wire. And then what you want to do
is simply to twist and push. Basically you push in a twist. So once like this, turn and you push, twist, push, twist, push. And you repeat that. The goal is to have
as little clay as possible onto the wire. Mind that code porcelain
dries pretty quickly. So it's going to be
easier to work fast. And then you just roll
it between your fingers. You're not going to
see that wire all that much in the end because
it's going to be what? The way to fix your fish
onto your sculpture. So it doesn't have
to be perfect. But we want some wire so we can easily paint it with
a bit of water, just moves the clay onto your
fin and then let it dry? Yeah, I would suggest to use
some baking paper to put on top so the clay doesn't stick
to your working surface.
6. Painting The Fishes: So the colors I'm
going to use for this specific one,
or very basic. So it's from my
main color palette. I have a cool yellow
are warm yellow, cool red, and a warm red switch spiral
quinacridone, magenta. Then we have Indian yellow and very basic
transparent yellow. I really would encourage you to use what you already
have at home instead of buying the
exact supplies that I use and the paints that I'm using here are all
extra fine acrylic, which makes them
rather expensive. You don't really need
extra fine acrylics, especially fast Tony's, if you're more serious about
working in art, paints, is something where I think there's a huge
difference between high quality and low quality paints in terms of pigment load. And also the final result,
especially acrylics. Now, newbies sometimes
will tell you that you can use whatever
acrylic brand and it's going to be fine. But if you use low
quality acrylics, you're going to have
a lot more plastic in your paint and
it's going to show, and it's not pretty. So I want a very light pink and I already know that's too much rent,
but that's all right. You really need
very little paint to get the pink that I want. I want something that
is fairly decent, lights, something like that. So I would suggest to get
into the habit of using a palette knife to mix your
paint and not your brush. It's going to kill
your brushes if you always mix your color
with the brush. And for this specific one here, I'm simply going to
paint all over it. It's probably going
to need two layers. Now so far I experienced
with Rayleigh light ones, but you can also go
with a dark base. Yeah, and just mixed chiral
read and quinacridone magenta for beautiful
raspberry red. To avoid wasting acrylic paint, I use small ceramic tiles as palette and put those into
air-tight containers. You might also want
to spray some water onto the paint before
closing the lid. Paints can easily hold
for a few days like that. Once you have your
base layer on, you can start adding details and the
pattern for this one, I decided to go for stripes. And lastly for the eye, we're going to add a tiny dot. But I'm also going to mark the ice likely with
a mixture of red and black. Here I'm mixed ultramarine
blue and quinacridone magenta, both transparent pigments
to create a very vibrant, transparent purple that
I will be painting over the fish to create a purple
gradient on the fence. Then I created a pattern of white dots using a
very small brush. You want to make
sure to start in the center and follow the
lines of your fishers shape. So the pattern will
follow the body shape. You might also want
to try and make the center dots a little bigger
than those on the edges. I find creating lines of dots is the easiest way to keep
the pattern regular. So for this one, I decided I wanted something
more pinkish on top. I'm using the stippling
technique and says I'm going to cover a lot more
using a bigger brush. So I made a mixture than
is mostly quinacridone, magenta and white, but a little bit of
pyrrole red as well. And here I'm making
a mess and adding a few dots of the spiral red
and quinacridone magenta. I'm only going to add the half, the upper half of the fish body. I'm using reference
pictures, but again, I'm not using the
colors that I see, but rather use the
pattern that I see and then add the colors that I
want for my specific artwork. And now I'm going to
add some deep purple, ultramarine blue
and came back with a little magenta
to make stripes. On this fish, I started with
a pale yellow base coat. It was a mixture of
white and a azo yellow. After drying, I added a azo
yellow accents on the fence. Let's try again. And then finally added
a purple pattern. Now the purple is
the usual mixture of ultramarine blue and
quinacridone magenta. This fish has gotten a
mint colored base coats. I mixed fellow blue, white, and a bit of
yellow to get that color. The pattern is a little more
complex and appearance. I mostly use stippling
here to create the crisscross pattern and
started from the fence. The core idea is to
create a grid with dotted lines and to keep the dots darker on the
bottom of the fish. The darker dots will help
accentuate the natural shadows. To add more light. I also painted white
and pale yellow dots on the upper part of the fish. The next fish was painted in
the bright yellow base coat. I painted a small
geometric shape and a light blue around the eye. Then I added lines on the
fence with the same pale blue. Finally added the strips
pattern with a grayish brown, creating a very muted tone
from the colors on my palette. This bright red fish
was painted with a mixture of pyrrole and
quinacridone magenta. I mixed a pale pink
adding white to that red mixture and painted
the back fence at his lands. Next, I painted the
geometric pattern using the purple mixture of ultramarine blue and
quinacridone magenta. Last is a variation of the stripped motif we did
on the very first fish. But this time using stippling. First I painted
the white stripes and then I added shadows, was brown and light with
pale orange and yellow.
7. Final Words: Once you've done your fishes, you can transform
them into jewelry. I can really imagine
them looking rate as earrings or as an
adorable necklace. I personally use them in
these following sculptures. The first one is a sculpture
on a plastic bottles. So I made the whole coral reef
and I have other classes. If you wonder how to make
these on Skillshare. And I added the fissures
in the coral reef in a rainbow gradient of colors. I also had fun to
add fishes into this candy machine in a more
monochromatic color scheme. And lastly, I also use the fissures in this
book sculpture and this book's countries really add the origin of the
small fish idea. Now I do not say that you
need to do exactly alike. I added quite the contrary. I think you really want
to do artworks that align with your vision of the
world and your sensibility. But these are just to show you what you could
possibly do with them. You can also simply create a coral reef sculpture
and add flourishes to it, play around with colors, color schemes to make this
class and tail yours. Please also share your
project with the class. I love to see what
you come up with. And if you want to share your
project on social media, please specify that you did it following my instructions
in this class. And don't forget to tag me. I go by the moniker pretty plot on Instagram and Facebook. And Stephanie kill
gas on TikTok. Thank you so much for watching. I really hope you
enjoyed this class and I hope to see you in
my next class. Bye.
Stephanie Kilgast, Contemporary artist.
